[Quora] Is Google Plus Dead?

By Edoardo Moreni - July, 18th 2012

Google Plus keeps running and everyone talks about it in a good or bad way. As we previously posted, we didn’t like the way G+ acted on Diaspora, but it is also true that they introduced some interesting features in the social networking world. Further the new recent iPad app has drastically created a gap between Facebook and Google on this iDevice. However there are still people that think this platform is dead. I mostly agree with them, yes Google Plus is dead, but that is not its aim.

Google Plus in the first year has reached just 200M users, but the interactivity on the site is not at the same level of Facebook. However if you see the big picture, you will understand that at this stage stats are not important, because it is more important in which environment Google Plus is settled. For this reason I still believe that Google Plus could win in the long run, but this is up to them and to their choices in developing this product.

Here I live my answer on Quora to this question.

Is Google Plus Dead?

It is actually pretty alive. Google Plus is a social networking platform as Facebook. There is no big difference between Google Plus and Facebook. For this reason it is difficult to get 901M active users in the first YEAR. You can’t expect people joining Google Plus; until the things they do on Facebook are the same on G+ and until all their Friends are on Facebook, G+ won’t get much momentum.

However that’s not the point and this is what people do not understand. Google is not expecting to face a war against Facebook. Facebook is too strong, you can not fight Facebook. The only thing that you can do is to try to get every single user from the Google’s ecosystem, one by one.

If you see the big picture G+ is not a product, but a mere feature that completes what Google has been trying to do in the last ten years, a real ecosystem. They are trying to keep us constantly on their main domain, because they have everything.

With this idea in mind, Google Plus is going to keep working and will never lose the fight, because in the long run they can just win over Facebook. In the moment they will release Google Car and Google Glass, there will be ways to share on G+ (only) and people will be forced to move to Plus from the moment they walk in the Google’s ecosystem.

G+ is just a little piece of what Google is. If you have a Google Account, sooner or later you will join G+. It is just a matter of time. BTW, let me say just one single thing, Facebook took eight years, Google Plus just one.

Someone could simply say that Google has more power. It is true, but it is also true that the way these products spread is low (and we are a LOT).

Don’t think about G+, think about google.com and that inoffensive black bar that there is on the top. By the way, the new recent app released on iPad is outstanding.